Blame
by SpookyClaire
Summary: When Kurt and Blaine get in a fight the members of New Directions assume it's the ex-Warbler's fault and make their displeasure with the situation known. Only problem is it wasn't really Blaine's fault. Blangst


**Blame**

_When Kurt and Blaine get in a fight the members of New Directions assume it's the ex-Warbler's fault and make their displeasure with the situation known. Only problem is it wasn't really Blaine's fault. _

Enjoy!

00

Blaine had been moving about rather robotically all day. He felt out of place, catatonic. Without the taller boy at his side he felt lost at McKinley. He transferred to _be_ with Kurt, to start over, to be happy. But he was far from fucking happy right now. He couldn't even look at Kurt, not after all the things that were said yesterday. His chest ached, his eyes stung, he was tired as hell since he hadn't slept at all…to put it simply Blaine felt like shit.

And he didn't have Kurt to make him feel better.

"Remember when I told you if you hurt him I would rip off your dick and force you to eat it?" Blaine jumped at the voice in his ear. He didn't need to turn around to know who was speaking. He'd remembered Santana's threat for May like it was yesterday. But when he turned he found both Mercedes and Santana standing before him with dark looks on their faces.

"With all due respect ladies, this is none of your business." Blaine said rather politely before turning to his locker and continuing to gather up his books.

"Do you really think you can break Kurt's heart and get away with it?" Mercedes all but hissed at him. Blaine's hand froze over his history text book. _He _broke_ Kurt's_ heart? Yeah. Sure. They had no idea what they were talking about.

Blaine pulled his text from his locker and slammed it shut. "Back off, guys." He turned and stomped off, he could hear Mercedes cry 'Hell to the no!' but it seemed to be followed by the other girl calming her because neither chased after him.

The rest of the day didn't go much better.

Finn pulled him aside and gave him a long, weird, hardly-understandable-string-of-thoughts lecture that ultimately ended in 'If you don't fix what you did I'll pummel you.'

Quinn dug her nails in his arm, actually breaking the skin, and warned him to grovel before Kurt found someone better and actually worth his time.

Rachel gave him a long lecture about how the 'gays need to stick together' which ended with her insulting his height (yes, Rachel-5-foot-tall-Berry insulted his height) and warned him to apologize for whatever he did to Kurt.

Artie purposefully ran over his foot, and it _really fucking hurt_. Like he wouldn't be surprised if his toes were broken. It gave him a kind of limp.

Then Puck tripped him in the hall, making the limp worse. And Jesus Christ were these people fucking _serious_? Blaine thought he'd made friends with them, but clearly not. He was clearly just an accessory to Kurt to them. Without Kurt he was nothing but an unworn scarf or an empty shoulder bag.

That thought alone, mixed with the limp and the cuts on his arm, Blaine was starting to feel really depressed. The only ones who didn't say anything at all were Brittany, Tina, and Mike. He figured it was because he and Mike had grown pretty close and the dancer didn't want to pick a side. Tina was too polite to encroach on something that wasn't her business, and Brittany probably didn't even know what was going on. Or at least, he thought so until Brittany and Tina walked up to him at his locker at the end of the day.

"Oh no, not you guys too." Blaine moaned to himself as Brittany leaned against the wall beside him and Tina stepped in close. He opened his mouth to tell them that he'd already heard it several times but Tina spoke before he could.

"Are you ok?" Blaine froze, surprised by her words. He'd expected a threat, a demand that he fix whatever he did. He didn't expect them to be concerned about him.

"Narwhal?" Brittany asked, getting his attention and making him smile despite himself. She'd taken to calling him Narwhal ever since Blaine had explained what a Narwhal was ("It's like a unicorn and a dolphin had a baby! It's you!").

"I've been better, guys." Blaine said quietly.

"What happened with you and Kurt?" Tina asked, a look of concern deep in her eyes. "I've never seen you two so upset…and that's saying something with all Kurt went through last year."

"I don't like you being sad." Brittany added, frowning. "Kurt's sad too, but when we asked him why he said it was his fault." And in that moment Blaine felt tears prickling at his eyes, Brittany leaned, trying to meet his eye. "Is it?"

It _was_ Kurt's fault he was sad.

Kurt and him had gotten in a bad fight the night before. Kurt kept talking about New York and Blaine joining him later. But Blaine didn't want to talk about it, he couldn't think about his life without Kurt, even if just for one year. So when Blaine had a less than excited reaction to the prospect of living together Kurt took it the wrong way, getting insulted, Blaine tried to be placating and explain what he as really upset about but Kurt just got madder and madder. And then suddenly they were yelling at each other and Blaine had no idea how that had happened. Kurt called Blaine overcautious, Blaine called Kurt a drama queen, Kurt called Blaine a coward. Blaine looked stung at that and huffed that he wasn't going to deal with Kurt like this.

And the last thing Kurt said to him was "Sure, Blaine! Just run away! Run away from this like you do with _all_ your problems! Where's your courage now?"

Blaine had frozen, shocked by the cruel words his boyfriend had just hurled at him. He knew what Kurt was referring to. To how he left his old school, how he ran to Dalton. It was their first fight, and he knew (hoped) Kurt didn't mean it (if his 60 text messages told him anything), but it _stung_.

Because Kurt was _right_.

Blaine _was_ a coward. He ran from his old school, from the bullies. He wanted to run from Prom night. He ran away from home one night over the summer after a particularly bad fight with his dad. He ran. He always ran. He was a huge fucking coward. And Kurt called him on it. He could preach and preach about courage but it didn't matter because he was just a huge fucking coward.

He couldn't even look at Kurt. It was like a veil was pulled back and the real Blaine Anderson, the Blaine Anderson he'd tried so hard to hide, had been revealed. The useless little coward.

"Narwhal?" Brittany's soft voice pulled him from his thoughts, and it was then that Blaine remembered where he was. And that he was crying.

"Blaine, don't cry." Tina all but whispered, and suddenly the two girls were wrapping their arms tight around him, humming softly at the tight embrace.

"Thank you, guys." Blaine whispered as the three pulled apart. "I really needed that hug."

Tina gave him a sad smile as Brittany asked, "Will you tell us why you're so sad?"

Blaine bit his lip, "Kurt and I got in a fight last night. We're not really talking at the moment. And everyone…everyone thinks it's my fault. Ugh, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've been threatened today. Artie and Puck actually hurt my leg, and Quinn cut my arm, and I just…I really want to go home." Blaine wiped his eyes on his sweater sleeve and glanced at the girls embarrassedly, only to see they looked angry.

"They did _what_?" Tina cried at the same time Brittany all but growled "Everyone from glee was picking on you?" Blaine just nodded, unsure what else to say. His eyes bounced back and forth between the two girls as they shared a look. He'd never seen either of them look so angry.

"That's not ok." Brittany said finally. And then gently, but forcefully, they grabbed him arms and led him towards the choir room.

"Guys, wait, please, I don't want to go in there." The cheerleader and the goth stopped, turning to the shorter boy.

"Narwhal, it's not ok that they're being mean to you. Especially since Kurt's the one who made you sad." Brittany said seriously, as if talking to a child.

"Blaine." Tina started, "This is _bullying_. Everything we're against in Glee club. They can't get away with treating you this way."

"But they were just trying to protect Kurt." Blaine whispered, looking down.

"And what about you?" Tina asked, stomping her foot slightly. "What about you, Blaine? You're our friend too! What, you and Kurt have your first fight and suddenly we forget that? No. Kurt may be our friend too but just because you two are fighting doesn't mean everyone gets a free pass to treat you like shit!" Tina was practically yelling at the end, talking fast and in one breath. She took a deep breath and calmed herself.

Blaine blinked hard, fighting back tears at Tina's words. She actually cared about him, he wasn't just an accessory to Kurt to her. He wasn't just a scarf she liked one day and decided was out of style the next. He meant something to her. To both girls. Blaine scrubbed a hand at his eyes, fighting the tears again.

"No more crying, Blaine. We're going to go in there and fix this." Brittany said quietly, wrapping and arm around his shoulder. Tina smiled and nodded in agreement, looping her arm around his.

Blaine had never been so touched. But his heart hurt just at the thought of his boyfriend, let alone seeing him. "I can't go in there and face all of them." He whispered, "I can't face Kurt."

"He's been alone all day, you know." Brittany said quietly, and Blaine glanced up at her at that.

"He has?"

"Yeah, everyone's been trying to talk to him but he told them all to go away. We're the only ones he didn't yell at."

Tears were suddenly flowing down Blaine's face again and they seemed to rejuvenate the girls. Tightening their hold on him, they led him to the choir room before he could say anything else.

The room went quiet as they entered. Blaine glanced up to see Mike perk up at them, giving Blaine a reassuring smile and a goofy thumbs up. Blaine couldn't help but smile slightly at that, Mike was on his side too.

But his smile quickly disappeared as he caught sight of the rest of the room. They were shooting daggers his way, not even trying to hide their disdain.

Kurt was absent.

Blaine started to take a step back but Brittany and Tina's hold on him tightened.

"Guys, we need to talk." Tina said seriously. Blaine's eyes flickered to Mike again, who had gone serious. Before Tina was even speaking he was nodding along with her. "The way you've been acting is _not_ ok."

"Tina what are you talking about?" Rachel asked exasperatedly, as if Tina were always coming up with crazy ideas.

"What you guys have been doing all day to Blaine? It's bullying."

Finn looked insulted at that, "We didn't bully him!"

"Really? Threatening him, insulting him, hurting him? That's not bullying?" Brittany snarled, eyes going from teen to teen as she spoke.

"He's our friend, guys! You can't treat him this way!" Tina cried, and Blaine once again tried to shrink back. He was touched by their words but _God_ was he mortified.

"I mean, Rachel and Finn I guess I would expect." Brittany said with a roll of her eyes as Rachel opened her mouth to protest, "But Mercedes? _Santana_?" The blonde gave her girlfriend a particularly hard look, and Santana suddenly couldn't stop looking at her shoes.

"And don't even get me started on you three." Tina pointed to Quinn, Puck, and Artie. "Physically hurting him?"

"Oh please, Tina. We didn't do anything." Quinn quipped. Puck nodded, though his eyes looked uncertain as he looked Blaine up and down. Artie at least had the decency to look ashamed.

Blaine had never wanted to crawl into a hole and die more than he did right now.

"Really? Because the cuts on his arm and that limp he's got say otherwise!"

"Cuts? Limp?" A new voice said, joining the group from the doorway, and _oh fuck_.

Blaine turned to see Kurt standing there. True to Brittany and Tina's word he looked awful. His face was pale and his eyes were red, his clothes were even a little wrinkled. This was serious.

Blaine wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around him and never let go. But still, all he could hear in his head was Kurt calling him a coward.

"You guys have been treating Blaine like shit all day?" Kurt said, looking horrified as he stepped further into the room.

"We were just telling him to fix whatever he did."

Kurt glanced at Rachel, "Who says he's the one who did anything?"

"Look at you, Kurt! You're a mess! Clearly he did something!" She defended.

Kurt paused again, glancing at Blaine and _oh god_ his eyes looked so broken as he looked at his boyfriend. "You all have _no_ idea what you're talking about." Kurt whispered, voice shaking. "Why did none of you thought to think that maybe _I'm_ the one who messed up? Did you think of that? I'm the asshole, me!" Blaine's eyes widened at Kurt's words. He supposed he should have expected it after all the apology texts. But hearing Kurt say this out loud triggered so many emotions in Blaine.

He was happy Kurt felt bad for what he did, because it made Blaine feel like shit. But he couldn't really feel happy as his boyfriend stood before him in tears, calling himself an asshole. Blaine really did have to resist the urge to wrap his arms around Kurt.

"And regardless of whose fault it is did any of you even think that it's _none of your business_?"

"Kurt, you're my brother. It's my-"

"Finn." Kurt cut the teen off, "I understand you have brotherly duties or _whatever_ but if you feel so inclined why not ask me?"

"You wouldn't tell me what happened!" Finn cried defensively.

"Then you should try _butting out_!" Kurt cried, stomping his foot, "Like I _told_ you to! Did you realize that I didn't want to talk about it because I'm fucking _ashamed_?" Kurt swore, causing a few of the glee members to flinch. "Did you ever think that maybe I didn't want to talk about it? I _hurt_ the man I _love_ and I'm _disgusted_ with myself! I'm a huge fucking asshole and I just can't-"

"Stop it." Blaine whispered, cutting Kurt off completely. All eyes were suddenly on the curly haired boy. "Kurt, stop it." Blaine whispered still, eyes locking with his boyfriend's. Both boys' eyes were filled with tears, both looking so broken and lost without their other half. "Don't say that about yourself."

"But, Blaine…what I said to you…" Kurt's shoulders jerked a little as he held back a sob, "I didn't mean it."

Blaine glanced down at his shoes, "I know you didn't. But you were right Kurt."

"Blaine, no-"

"I _am_ a coward. I run from everything in my life. Bullies, my dad, and now you, this fight. I just…it hurt so bad to hear it from you because it was _true_."

Kurt was suddenly standing toe-to-toe with Blaine, holding his face in his hands so their eyes were locked. "No, Blaine. You're _not_. You are the strongest person I know."

"But what about-"

"The bullies you ran from because you were fucking _hospitalized_ for the whole of your freshman year because of them. Your dad you ran from because he called you something horrible. But you _faced_ it all, Blaine. You came here with me, you came back to public school known for its bullying. You went back to your dad and talked it out with him. And you will every time something happens. You're _not_ a coward. The only reason you ran now…it's because I'm such an _ass_-"

Blaine suddenly reached up and placed his hands lovingly around Kurt's wrists, the taller boy's hands still on Blaine's cheeks. "You're not, Kurt. You're not."

"But what I said-"

"It hurt to hear you say that, Kurt. It did. But…being away from you, even just for today…it hurt even more."

With tears in his eyes Kurt closed the distance between them and their lips crashed together. After a short, needy kiss they pulled back, foreheads pressed together. "I'm so sorry, Blaine. I love you so much."

"I love you too, Kurt." Blaine whispered back.

And then someone coughed, and it was like all their air was taken from the room. Pulling back, the two boys quickly turned to their friends, cheeks pink in embarrassment.

"Uh, forgot you guys were there." Blaine mumbled, scratching the back of his neck and staring at the floor.

"I think more apologies are in order." Kurt said, glancing to the offending glee members.

"We're sorry Blaine." Rachel said quietly, speaking for the group.

Kurt snorted, "You're going to have to do fucking better than that." He wrapped an arm around Blaine's waist, "Maybe you can spend Glee discussing the extravagant apology you're going to come up with. Blaine and I are going to go home. And that_doesn't_ include what you're going to have to do to get back on _my_ good side." Kurt paused, glancing to Brittany and Tina, "Not you girls, you're still good in my book." He gave them a soft smile before turning back to the large group, "Try _thinking_ next time." And with that, Kurt led Blaine from the choir room.

"I'm glad we made up." Blaine whispered as they walked down the hall. "Today was torture."

"I know," Kurt said, shaking his head. "We're never fighting again, ok?"

"Deal." Blaine laughed slightly, running his fist under his nose.

"Let's go home…I've got a few batches of apology cookies to make you." Blaine laughed slightly and leaned up to kiss Kurt's cheek.

"I love you, Kurt."

"I love you too, Blaine."


End file.
